[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

debasing sin. This tendency of bodily sin to reproduce itself is one of the most fearful and terrible of the
consequences of conscious gross transgression of nature s laws. The spirit has found all its pleasure in
bodily gratifications, and lo! when the body is dead, the spirit still hovers round the scene of its former
gratifications, and lives over again the bodily life in vices of those whom it lures to sin. Round the gin-
shops of your cities, dens of vice, haunted by miserable besotted wretches, lost to self-respect and sense
of shame, hover the spirits who in the flesh were lovers of drunkenness and debauchery. They lived the
drunkard s life in the body; they live it over again now, and gloat with fiendish glee over the downward
course of the spirit whom they are leagued to ruin. Could you but see how in spots where the vicious
congregate the dark spirits throng, you would know something of the mystery of evil. It is the influence of
these debased spirits which tends so much to aggravate the difficulty of retracing lost steps, which makes
the descent of Avernus so easy, the return so toilsome. The slopes of Avernus are dotted with spirits
hurrying to their destruction, sinking with mad haste to ruin. Each is the centre of a knot of malignant
spirits, who find their joy in wrecking souls and dragging them down to their own miserable level.
Such are they who gravitate when released from the body to congenial spheres below the earth. They
and their tempters find their home together in spheres where they live in hope of gratifying passions and
lusts which have not faded with the loss of the means of satisfying their cravings.
In these spheres they must remain subject to the attempted influence of the missionary spirits, until the
desire for progress is renewed. When the desire rises, the spirit makes its first step. It becomes
amenable to holy and ennobling influence, and is tended by those pure and self-sacrificing spirits whose
mission it is to tend such souls. You have among you spirits bright and noble, whose mission in the earth-
life is among the dens of infamy and haunts of vice, and who are preparing for themselves a crown of
glory, whose brightest jewels are self-sacrifice and love. So amongst us there are spirits who give
themselves to work in the sphere of the degraded and abandoned. By their efforts many spirits rise, and
when rescued from degradation, work out long and laborious purification in the probation spheres,
where they are removed from influences for evil, and entrusted to the care of the pure and good. So
desire for holiness is encouraged and the spirit is purified. Of the lower spheres we know little. We only
know vaguely that there are separations made between degrees and sorts of vice. They that will not seek
for anything that is good, that wallow in impurity and vice, sink lower and lower, until they lose conscious
identity, and become practically extinct, so far as personal existence is concerned; so at least we believe.
Alas! alas! sad and sorrowful is the thought. Mercifully, such cases are rare, and spring only from
deliberate rejection by the soul of all that is good and ennobling. This is the sin unto death of which Jesus
told His followers; the sin against the Holy Spirit of God of which you are told. The sin, viz., of rejecting
the influences of God s holy angel ministers, and of preferring the death of vice and impurity to the life of
holiness and purity and love. It is the sin of exalting the animal to the extinction of the spiritual; of
degrading even the corporeal; of cultivating sensual earthly lusts; of depraving even the lowest tastes; of
reducing the human to the level of the lowest brute. In such the Divine essence is quenched; the baser
elements are fostered, forced, developed to undue excess. They gain absolute sway, they quench the
spirit, and extinguish all desire for progress. The vice perpetuates itself, and drags the wretch who has
 35 
SECTION III
yielded himself to the animal enjoyments further and further from the path of progress, until even the
animal becomes vitiated and diseased; the unhealthily stimulated passions prey on themselves; and the
voice of the spirit is heard no more. Down must the soul sink, down and yet down, further and further,
until it is lost in fathomless obscurity.
This is the unpardonable sin. Unpardonable, not because the Supreme will not pardon, but because the
sinner chooses it to be so. Unpardonable, because pardon is impossible where sin is congenial, and
penitence unfelt.
Punishment is ever the immediate consequence of sin; it is of its essence, not arbitrarily meted out, but
the inevitable result of the violation of law. The consequences of such transgression cannot be altogether
averted, though they may be palliated by remorse, the effect of which is to breed a loathing for sin and a
desire for good. This is the first step, the retracing of false steps, the undoing of error, and by
consequence the creation in the spirit of another longing. The spiritual atmosphere is changed, and into it
good angels enter readily and aid the striving soul. It is isolated from evil agencies. Remorse and sorrow
are fostered. The spirit becomes gentle and tender, amenable to influences of good. The hard, cold,
repellent tone is gone, and the soul progresses. So the results of former sin are purged away, and the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]